Nineteen Things I Learned as I Deal with Adulthood

A. Life is one big, complex and complicated mess. It does not always go according to plan. It always finds its absurd reason to ruin every single plan you made for yourself in your head. The timeline you created when you were little? As much as I hated to be the bearer of a horrible news, it does not usually happen for most people. Those which did, well, they are great and lucky. Chances are indeed in their favors.

B. You really have to embrace your imperfections because nobody will ever do it for you except for you and yourself. You have to love the frizziness of your curly hair, the big bags under your round eyes over your thick brows, the bridge of your nose and the contours of your pale lips. You also have to learn how to treat the scars stitched through your skin as if wonderful creations and masterpieces. You also have to love the uneven curves of your body or even your toes. Love yourself when no one else does.

C. Smile a lot even you feel the positive vibe and aura inside you. Sometimes you just have to make someone feel better with that simple upward pull of your lips. Sometimes, you really have to be the instrument of happiness and joy. It is contagious after all.

D. Drink a lot of water. Your body will really thank you for that simple way of taking care of your God-given temple. And not that it is only good for your health, it can also help you save money since you will feel full or bloated. Bills of an adult is very different from being a teenager since aside from having expensive payables and taxes, there is also the thing that called saving. An adult must save for future purposes.

E. Sometimes, a blaring good music will help you kill all the monsters rampaging in your head and to shut the world down. There is really a time in adulthood where you you feel so low and the world is moving too fast or too slow that you cannot keep pace along with it. And you are starting to lose yourself and you just want to feel disconnected from it.

F. Your heart will break. No matter how hard you try to build barricades around it, someone out there always have tools to destroy it. And since you are crazy over your feelings, you will let your guard down without realizing that that person is not worthy at all and you will be left in a very catastrophic and devastated state.

G. You are going to lose people in your lives. Even friendship you think would last for a lifetime. Not because you are a bad person or what, but simply because they did something horrible to you that the only thing left is to walk away and remove them from the equation.

H. There really comes a time that you will feel such a loser and nothing is happening in your life despite everything. But you have to stop that right away since it will ruin you until you collapse and could no longer stand up again. You just have to believe in yourself no matter what.

I. People are very different from one another. Some are good. Some are not, obviously. But it should not be a reason for you to lose your faith in humanity.

J. You will feel that you just need an escape from everything since the things around you are very difficult to handle anymore. But you cannot since you know that you have to deal with them no matter what. You really have to since those things are tests for your patience and character.

K. Feelings and emotions will constantly falter. You easily get hurt. You tend to be sensitive over stupid and silly things you used to ignore when you were younger. You may wonder why you are suddenly being emotional over simple things. It is part of the process since everything on this stage is new to you.

L. Nobody will teach you how to deal with adulthood. You have to figure out it all by yourself. This is a thrilling, dangerous, exciting and exhausting stage that you have to conquer to reach the next tougher level. If you do not survive this, good luck Mario in saving your damsel in distress.

M. Intelligence is not sufficed to reach for your dream. It also takes courage. You have to be bold to take risks and go out of your comfort zone. You also have to have patience in waiting for the results. If it still did not fruit into something good, you should be patient enough to try again until you reach for it.

N. Education is absolutely important but having a college degree is not a guarantee that you are going to end up living a great life, rather it is simply an edge amongst others who are battling for that wonderful prize. It is up to you how are you going to use that beautiful priviledge given to you. Do not waste it. Tons of people out there wants to have education like yours.

O. Sometimes, you really have to speak out your thoughts and opinions for people to shut the fuck up and for them to realize that you are tired of them or their hideous attitudes.

P. You do not need to always look good in everyone’s eyes. You are a human being; allowed to commit mistakes but capable of learning; righteous to feeling something extreme. Everyday is not always a good day.

Q. Never compare yourself to others. The more you do, the more frustrated and exhausted you will be. The more you do, the more negative feelings you will attract. Stop comparing. And live your life.

R. Social media is a powerful instrument nowadays but you should not let this thing define your success, your life and most especially who you truly are. Do not be impressed by everything you see there. Not all you see there is true. If not some, most of them are deceit for the sake of wanting to look good in the eyes of everybody.

S. Life will never ever adjust itself for you. You must adjust yourself to deal with it.

Five Simple Things to Do when You’re Having a Rough Day

1. Wash your face. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that it’s just another bad day but everything is going to be alright. And in case you made a petty mistake, keep telling yourself that you are simply a human being, imperfect but capable of learning.
2. Create a playlist for happiness and positivity. Keep listening to it every time you are having a very bad day. Keep listening until the melodies kill the stress.
3. Put a rubber bad around your wrist to remind yourself that everything is going to be alright.
4. Grab an ice cream. There’s nothing better than eating your comfort food during a very dull and crazy day. Indulge yourself until you totally forget about everything.
5. Take a walk to clear your mind. Feel the wind brushing against your skin to soothe your mind and body.

To Love Someone Like Me

To love me means also loving to hear all the raging thoughts in my head at one in the morning when all of my frustrations suddenly burst; it also means embracing all the quirkiness wrapped around my entirety like adoring how beautiful the stars up above midnight or how the clouds move in a slow motion to form warriors and knights; it may as well mean coming with me at Mcdonald’s when I crave for some fries and sundae at two in the morning; it’s also defined as listening to my senseless and repetitious stories about my dreams, fantasies and everyday life. To love me means swearing that you would listen to the songs I would tell to you in the middle of the day because I assure you, you’d be hearing from me talking about them from time to time.

Loving someone like me isn’t easy for I am someone scarred badly in the past. My whole system is composed of heartaches, pains, sorrows and miseries—I am imperfectly flawed but that made me who I am. To love me is to embrace those imperfections stitched through my veins. To love me means allowing me to have solitude once in a while since I have these moments that I want to shut my world down from everybody else; I have those dark times that I never wanted to talk to anybody at all and just want to lock myself in my own world. Just give me some time to think, at the end of the day I will come back to you.  To love me is to tell me how much you care for me even in the slightest way—I will surely appreciate that even my form of appreciation and gratitude is to tell how corny or annoying you are, but deep down, your words mean a lot and warmed my heart. To love me means staying with me no matter how messy and difficult I could be. All I ever want is someone who will stand right behind me during my darkest and worst moments of my life.

To love me is to tell me your thoughts and opinions about the things I keep on telling you about even they mean nothing to you. To love me is to allow me to grow with you as a being physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

I am a complicated and difficult person. I am crazy, wild, freak, easily hurt and gullible. So tell me you love me when you only mean it. I don’t have time for some franks or what. I have had enough of heartbreaks in my past. I am aging and all I ever want for now is a stable and long-lasting relationship that would make me choose to stay no matter how many rocks were thrown at us or no matter how turbulent and bumpy the roads may get.

To love me means a little bit of sacrifice. But I can guarantee you that I could make you feel you’re the best person in the world and you didn’t make the wrong choice by choosing me over them. With me, I can make you feel disconnected from the rest of the galaxy. I will surely make tons of efforts for our relationship to keep going and last. It will be a tough ride for the both of us but I can assure you that it will be worth it and filled with so much fun. To love me means needing and wanting me like the way I do to you.

Truth must be told, I still think about you every day. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that I no longer care about you or everything you do, I always come back to the reality that I am simply a pretender. I still want to know everything you do in your life. But of course, that wouldn’t happen anymore. You chose to end the communication between us at all without giving me a full clearance. Somehow, I hate you for that. But I no longer care about it. All I want now is for you to come back. It may sound ridiculously foolish to you or to anyone who knows what happened between us but I don’t mind. I still have feelings for you even I deny it to everyone in this world including myself.

 

I can’t bring myself listening to those songs which I know will make me remind of you since I am afraid that huge waves of sadness will crash against me once more after all those times of trying to eliminate it from my system. I can’t risk another goodbye to you if I swallowed my pride to drop a single message from you just to tell how my day has been like we used to. I can’t dare let go of those wonderful memories that keep on crippling me to move forward from everything that has been holding the euphoria I ever desire. And I can’t understand why. Maybe you’re just one of those few persons who can create a huge impact into my life given only a very short period of time in a way I could never explain.

 

I have no idea if I ever cross your mind in between your reflections about your day and fight against your monsters and ghosts. In case you wonder about my case, you do. You always do. Right now, I simply can’t wait for the day that I will no longer feign happiness; that my pen will no longer write about you; that you will be just somebody that I used to know.

Note to Self

            The truth is as you age, sadness and frustrations will be surrounding you most of the times. There will really come a point that you’d feel so low of yourself—that nothing is really happening in your life; you haven’t achieved anything big; your colleagues are having the times of their lives; you keep on losing friends making you wonder if it’s your fault or not; the dreams you built when you were younger aren’t still coming into reality; your heart keeps on breaking from time to time; your pocket seems to always run out of money in a way you can never explain; your expenses are much higher than your savings.

                But as you try to dig to the reason why those unnecessary thoughts flood your brain, two reasons will come up—comparison and overthinking. If you could only learn how to stop doing those two things and start paying attention to the simple things and pleasures in your life, you’d soon realize how blessed you are. You have no idea how much somebody out there is willing to be in your position since you have everything they ever desire. If you could only find out you have suffice than what you truly needed, needless to say, you are more than blessed.

                You are surrounded by negative feelings since you are rushing yourself and your life which shouldn’t be the case. You always desire that glorious and flamboyant things will happen within a blink of an eye. It is not. Just take one step at a time. Just closely pay attention to the wonderful things in your life no matter how petty they may seem in your opinion, you’d soon appreciate your life more. Take a deep breath. Start it today. Soon enough, you will emerge as a much happier and better person whose outlook towards life is more wonderful than ever.

Letter for my Future Lover

It is one crazy chance that someone will fall in love with me. However, it is a beautiful privilege to be loved in the most splendid way like you do. Everything is already uncertain between us from the very beginning, yet I am willing to stay with you no matter how many times life offers me reasons to give up and let it all go.

To be loved and accepted despite the flaws and imperfections stitched into my skin and flesh mean so much to me. Tons of people came along my way but they never stayed; they only gave me false hopes that something beautiful is going to happen between us. With that, I will always be endlessly grateful to you for choosing me over them even I know for a fact that I am not the best out there. I am thanking you for all the sacrifices you endured for me. I am aware that I am not easy to fall in love with that’s why I am really grateful to you.

As much as I am thankful to you, I simply want to apologize for some things. I am deeply sorry for being clingy and territorial when it comes to you—I am just afraid that you will find them more interesting and compelling than me; I am fearful that they will look more wonderful in your eyes that you might realize that I am not really the one you love. I am really sorry for being a drunk of jealousy every time you tell someone’s name who I believe create a special impact in your life; I just can’t help the bitter taste of it at the tip of my tongue that’s why it shows in my actions and words; I am not confident of myself that’s why I feel that sensation I shouldn’t really feel. I am really sorry for always living in my past when you are my present and my future; I cannot simply let them go because my ghosts still haunt me during the night. I am sorry for telling you about the miseries and sorrows that keep on running in my bloodstream even you tell me that I should already forget them. I am deeply sorry if I am too much of a burden and pain to you every time I started acting childish and immature. I am sorry for being cranky and impatient because the toll of the day has just taken over me but it doesn’t mean that I do not love you anymore. I always do. And I always will.

The kind of love we have may be different and difficult but I can assure you that it’s genuine, pure and real. I love you more than I love myself. It’s true love. Thank you for the patience, understanding, comfort and assurance that what you feel for me is true. Thank you for everything. And I promise that I will do my best to keep this love burning and long-lasting. You are truly the person I want to grow old with. Until our last breath, I will love you.

 

During the day, he tries his best to make himself busy for those fiendish creatures not to penetrate his entirety. He keeps on reminding himself that this day is his day; that it’s going to be another wonderful day; that it is going to be his best day; that it is going to be the day when everything will be alright. However, no matter how much he indulges himself, those horrible beings seem to know their passages towards his soul. It appears that they have their own keys into his body allowing him to lose all the vibrancy and euphoria he’s trying hard to maintain for it’s never easy to find joy.

And monsters are smart. They know the perfect time to make him feel worse than before. And it is when during the silence of the night when the world is all asleep and dreaming for a better day tomorrow; when his breathing pattern is the only sound that breaks the stillness of the room. Silent nights are supposed to be a wonderful idea for it is the perfect time to give it all a rest. But it wasn’t the case. He keeps on fighting the monster in his head when night already kicks in. He is weaker compare to them; they can easily take him down as if he has no strength at all. As soon as they touch his bare flesh, the atrocious sensation started to crawl in him. He hates it. Hate is perhaps an understatement. He despises it. He really does. And he’s been trying his best to take them on his own. He wants an end for all the fuss in his head. He desires to stop the battle between him and the monsters.

The sad truth is that he cannot think of any solution but one for they are hideously strong. And the only thing he can come up with is to give in.

An open letter for my 13-year old self.

An open letter for my 13-year old self.

 

Ten years from now, you will be 23. You will wonder how it feels like to be like 23. Let me tell you that you made it somehow but it wasn’t the way you dreamt it to be. It was a tough road full of pit holes that almost made you think to stop your journey.

 

You said to yourself and even to some of your friends that you’re already settled; you are happily married with four kids; you have a house and lot and a car; you are already a published writer and a restaurant owner.

 

Kid, as much as I hate to be the bearer of the bad news, nothing happened. Those childish fantasies of yours are still not yet happening. And they changed over the course of your life. You do not want to get married at all; if given a chance, you only want to have a son but still hesitant of it; you still don’t have your own house and lot and car but so far you’re renting an apartment; you’ve written too many but none was published. Don’t you realize, life doesn’t go that way?

 

But I am not saying that within ten years nothing happened in your life. You finished your bachelor’s degree with flying colors somehow. And that’s great news, right? Since not everybody was given the beautiful chance to finish their studies. You are working in a huge company you’ve never heard about before. And somehow, you’re having a career. Isn’t it beautiful?

 

However, kid, you must brace yourself. You must strengthen your heart. You must guard your emotions. You must keep your confidence with you. You are not the only human being walking in this earth. You are only a speck of dust who shares this earth with billion people. It isn’t easy, I assure you. Believe me if I tell you that it isn’t easy. You will meet tons of people who will play significant and vital roles in your life. They will mock, judge, degrade and push you to your limits. Prejudices will always be thrown at you most especially when you keep on shining. They are just bunch of insecure and bull shit people who keep on exploiting your weakness since they believe that it will ruin you. But they got it all wrong. Since your weakness is your biggest strength. Keep that in mind. But don’t blame them or anything. People are people. They may be narrow-minded and immature. It is human nature to act that way.

 

Hey, don’t be a chicken just simply because of those stupid people. Don’t you worry, not people are bad; not people are like them. There’s still good people out there. And you are so blessed. Believe me. You truly are. You may not realize it but sooner or later, you will be struck with the realization that you must be thoroughly grateful with our creator for giving you those kinds of persons. Treat them as gem, will you? Your family is your biggest source of inspiration. You may not get along well but sooner or later everything will change and you will love that change. Your crazy cousins are still there! Believe me, they are the best cousins in the world. The closeness you built during your childhood remained intact. And your friends, kid, you have the best bunch of friends. They are priceless like your family. You never actually thought that those people are going to be your friends ten years after. And you are so blessed to have a best friend, who understands you from head to toe; who doesn’t need any detailed narration to understand the messy and complex your situations are. You treasure her so much. And you won’t believe that she’s going to be your best friend. You hate her so much before. And you promise to one another that you will be best friends until your last breath. Friendship is magical believe me. She will stay by your side during the darkest times of your life. And she still will. But one of the saddest things about friendship is some friendship are not meant to last. Some friends are temporary. People really come and go but you have to deal with it even it hurts.

 

You do not usually fall in love but when you do, you terribly fall hard to the extend that you no longer know how to love yourself. And that’s why I keep on telling you that you should guard your emotions. You always allow your feelings to control you. You always let your sensations to drown you. It isn’t good, don’t you realize? They consume you. They devour you. And that isn’t a good thing.

 

And as young as you are, can you please stop over thinking? Don’t you dare allow frustrations get in your head? You’re still young. There’s so much about life that you just don’t see since you keep on focusing at the bigger picture. But as soon as you closely look at your life, you will realize that you have too much than you actually need.

 

Do remember to stay healthy since it is a must. Your health will be in pretty bad shape ten years after. And you just have to accept your fate. That’s how life goes. But before that happens, you have to enjoy your life to the full(est). You only have one life and treasure it, alright?

Ever since it started, my lips only talked about you with my friends who know about us. They can see how my hazel brown eyes glimmered every time I talked about you and the stuff we did and shared. But they can also witness the miseries and sorrows deep inside as soon as I started feeling horrible about the thing between us.

You are a beautiful topic of our conversation. But you know what, it gets tiring when I always talk to them about you when the perpetual and endless worries about us soon hit my brain. I just want to talk about anything but you. However, every time I try to start a new conversation, it will only end with you once more. Why? We talked about everything and the things around me simply reminded me of you. I always find bits of you about everything. And that’s why forgetting you and the feelings you have given me would really be a hard task. I remember you with the stars for we used to look at them simultaneously as we talked over the phone: I remember you with the books since we love the same genre; I remember you with the movies because you talked a lot about them; I remember you with cigarettes since you smoke and it’s poison in your health like the way I am poisoning myself with the idea of you. I remember you with everything.

My heart carries too much heaviness in it after I laid my eyes open.The toll of missing you this way already crawled in my entirety. It’s only been almost two days of not talking to you but it felt like forever. Maybe I am really clingy and needy of you but I really can’t help myself for feeling as stupid as this. As much as I wanted to tell you how much I missed you, I just can’t since it may only lead to your annoyance. I don’t know. I just don’t want that to happen for it may soon lead to detachment.

After I ate my breakfast in a very lonesome manner, I took a bath with high hopes that I can remove this sadness engulfing me. However, the water only did splash away the germs in my bare skin from the previous day; my terrible feelings still remained. I tried to make this day as happy as possible since tomorrow is another long week for me yet no matter what I do, your thoughts still bother me; if you will ever come back. My thoughts are pathetic and hilarious, I know, and to tell you the truth, I am tired of them, of my emotions and of myself. If I could only rip my heart out to cleanse it to be brand new and to forget all the emotions I have for you, I would do it.

This longing of me for you is akin to my longing for my old self. If ever you can read this, I just want to tell that I missed you so much. And I am wondering if I ever crossed your mind even I do not text your or what. Will you soon come back? Or this no-talking-session of ours will lead to your detachment from me? If so, I must prepare myself for the upcoming devastation.